Local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia 2020
In the local elections held on September 13, 2020 in North Rhine-Westphalia , the representatives of all cities, municipalities and districts as well as most of the district administrators , lord mayors and mayors were elected. With the first meeting of the newly elected local councils, an electoral period for the North Rhine-Westphalian municipalities expires , which exceptionally lasted 77 months.
In addition, the Ruhr Parliament , the regional representation of the eleven independent cities and four districts of the Ruhr area , was directly elected by the more than two million citizens in the Ruhr metropolis who were entitled to vote for the first time.
The runoff elections, some of which were necessary, took place on September 27, 2020.
General
Suffrage
.jpg)
The number of members to be elected in the city and community councils is between 20 and 90 (not including possible overhang and compensatory mandates), up to 72 in the district assemblies Decrease 10, but not below 20 members. The number of constituencies in which an applicant is directly elected is always half the specified number of members. There has not been a five percent hurdle since 1999. The mandates are distributed according to the divisor procedure with standard rounding according to André Sainte-Laguë .
If a party or electoral group receives more seats in the electoral district than it is entitled to based on its share of the vote, compensatory mandates are allocated to the remaining lists. The mayor or lord mayor joins the council as a voting member and chairman;
The minimum age for the active right to vote is 16 years, for the passive right to vote 18 years. Eligible to vote in local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia are Germans and citizens of the 26 other EU member states who have reached the age of 16 on election day, at least since the 16th day before the election in the electoral area (in the municipality / city or in the district) live or otherwise stay habitually and are not excluded from the right to vote. Anyone who wants to vote for the district council in an independent city must be entitled to vote for the council in the relevant city district. When electing the municipal representation - the municipality or city council or the district council - each voter has only one vote, with which a constituency applicant and the reserve list of the party or electoral group for which the constituency applicant is drawn up is chosen at the same time.
In contrast, the election of the district council in a city that is not a district is a pure list election in which each voter also only has one vote; a 2.5% threshold clause applies here. ( Upper ) mayors or district administrators are determined by majority vote ; here, too, every voter has one vote.
Runoff
The runoff election in the event that no candidate achieves an absolute majority in the election of the mayor or district administrator was abolished in April 2019 by the state parliament on the proposal of the government under Prime Minister Armin Laschet . Accordingly, the applicant would have been elected with a relative majority of the votes, a rule that had already applied from 2007 to 2011.
The abolition of the runoff election was declared unconstitutional by a judgment of the state constitutional court announced on December 20, 2019 with four to three judge votes. Thus, runoff elections were still possible in the 2020 local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic
Facilitation for applicants
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany , the requirements for participating in the local elections have been simplified. Thus received z. For example, given the adverse circumstances, parties, voter groups and individual applicants have more time to submit their proposals. This period ended, eleven days later than originally planned, on July 27 at 6:00 p.m. In addition, the number of supporting signatures required for parties and groups of voters that are not previously represented in parliaments has been reduced by 40 percent. Municipalities were given the opportunity to enlarge the electoral districts.
The Constitutional Court of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia rejected a constitutional complaint and a request for a temporary injunction against the implementation of the municipal elections on September 13, June 30, 2020th
High turnout by postal vote
Many cities and municipalities reported record levels of participation in local elections by postal votes . The cities of Cologne , Düsseldorf and Bonn reported around two weeks before the election date that around one in four eligible voters had already requested postal voting documents. The number of postal voting districts has therefore increased significantly in many places compared to the 2019 European elections , in Cologne, for example, from 279 to 431. However, regardless of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a steady increase in postal voting participation in recent years, regardless of the type of voting Choice, recognizable.
Survey
On September 2, 2020, the WDR and various local newspapers published a survey by Infratest dimap , in which residents of eleven large cities, which represent around 30 percent of the population of North Rhine-Westphalia, were asked. The Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen party was forecast to have a significant increase in votes for the election of city councils in all cities participating in the survey, in some cases with the chance of becoming the party with the strongest votes. The SPD, on the other hand, was forecast to suffer significant losses across the board, and the CDU would largely keep its votes or would lose slightly, according to the survey. These three parties should therefore make the first three places among themselves in all cities surveyed. According to the forecast, all other parties, such as the FDP , AfD or Die Linke , should achieve (significantly) less than 10 percent of the votes in the eleven large cities. In cities like Aachen or Düsseldorf, close two or three-way battles for a place in the runoff election were expected in the election of the mayors. In other cities such as Cologne or Münster, the pollsters assumed the incumbents would win in the first ballot.
Transport was seen as the most important political problem in nine of the eleven cities , followed by housing , education and infrastructure . An exception among the cities surveyed was Duisburg , where immigration was seen as the most important issue. The majority of respondents in all cities were satisfied with the "Corona crisis management" between 60 and 80 percent. The respondents from Duisburg and Cologne were most likely to be dissatisfied.
Results
State result (district assemblies and councils of independent cities)
| Political party | be right | Representative | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| number | % | +/− to 2014 |
number | +/− to 2014 |
||
| Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) | 2,495,743 | 34.3 | −3.2 | 1,213 | −96 | |
| Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) | 1,766,181 | 24.3 | −7.1 | 912 | −197 | |
| Alliance 90 / The Greens (Greens) | 1,452,571 | 20.0 | +8.3 | 705 | +309 | |
| Free Democratic Party (FDP) | 405.139 | 5.6 | +0.8 | 198 | +39 | |
| Alternative for Germany (AfD) | 367,433 | 5.0 | +2.5 | 185 | +96 | |
| The left (left) | 277.781 | 3.8 | −0.8 | 137 | −27 | |
| The PARTY (PARTY) | 76,317 | 1.0 | +1.0 | 34 | +31 | |
| Volt Germany (Volt) | 37,590 | 0.5 | New | 13 | New | |
| Pirate Party Germany (Pirates) | 24,815 | 0.3 | −1.3 | 10 | −46 | |
| Ecological Democratic Party (ÖDP) | 6,990 | 0.1 | ± 0 | 3 | −1 | |
| Human Environment Animal Welfare Party (Animal Welfare Party ) | 6,751 | 0.1 | +0.1 | 3 | +2 | |
| Action party for animal welfare - the original (animal welfare here!) | 5,172 | 0.1 | New | 3 | New | |
| Family Party of Germany (Family) | 4,907 | 0.1 | +0.1 | 2 | +1 | |
| Departure C (departure) | 3,967 | 0.1 | New | 2 | New | |
| Alliance for Innovation and Justice (BIG) | 3,553 | 0.0 | −0.1 | 2 | +1 | |
| German Communist Party (DKP) | 2,886 | 0.0 | ± 0 | 2 | ± 0 | |
| Popular vote (referendum) | 3,021 | 0.0 | ± 0 | 1 | ± 0 | |
| The rights (rights) | 2,582 | 0.0 | ± 0 | 1 | −1 | |
| German Center Party (Center) | 2,238 | 0.0 | −0.1 | 1 | ± 0 | |
| SO! (SO!) | 1,896 | 0.0 | ± 0 | 1 | ± 0 | |
| Other parties | 5,197 | 0.1 | −1.3 | - | −35 | |
| Groups of voters | 323.825 | 4.4 | −0.1 | 170 | +10 | |
| Individual applicants | 1,667 | 0.0 | ± 0 | - | - | |
| total | 7,277,932 | 100.0 | ± 0 | 3,598 | +104 | |
| Valid votes | 7,277,932 | 98.5 | ± 0 | |||
| Invalid votes | 108.285 | 1.5 | ± 0 | |||
| voter turnout | 7,386,217 | 51.9 | +1.9 | |||
| Eligible voters | 14,235,746 | |||||
| Source: Regional Returning Officer | ||||||
Elected mayors and district administrators
Overview
| Nomination | upper mayor |
District administrators | total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) | 5 | 20th | 25th |
| Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) | 9 | 4th | 13 |
| Alliance 90 / The Greens (Greens) | 2 | - | 2 |
|
Joint election proposals: SPD and Greens CDU and Greens CDU and FDP CDU, Greens and FDP |
3 2 - 1 |
2 - 2 - |
5 2 2 1 |
| Individual applicants | - | 1 | 1 |
| total | 22nd | 29 | 51 |
Mayor election in independent cities
* Reelected ones highlighted in color
| District-free city | Lord Mayor | Nomination | Runoff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aachen | Sibylle Keupen | Green | Yes |
| Bielefeld | Pit Clausen | SPD | Yes |
| Bochum | Thomas Eiskirch | SPD, Greens | - |
| Bonn | Katja Dörner | Green | Yes |
| Bottrop | Bernd Carpenter | SPD | - |
| Dortmund | Thomas Westphal | SPD | Yes |
| Dusseldorf | Stephan Keller | CDU | Yes |
| eat | Thomas Kufen | CDU | - |
| Gelsenkirchen | Karin Welge | SPD | Yes |
| Hagen | Erik O. Schulz | CDU, Greens, FDP | - |
| Hamm | Marc Herter | SPD | Yes |
| Herne | Frank Dudda | SPD | - |
| Cologne | Henriette Reker | CDU, Greens | Yes |
| Krefeld | Frank Meyer | SPD | Yes |
| Leverkusen | Uwe Richrath | SPD | Yes |
| Mönchengladbach | Felix Heinrichs | SPD | Yes |
| Mülheim an der Ruhr | Marc Buchholz | CDU | Yes |
| Muenster | Markus Lewe | CDU | Yes |
| Oberhausen | Daniel Schranz | CDU | Yes |
| Remscheid | Burkhard Mast-Weisz | SPD, Greens | - |
| Solingen | Tim Kurzbach | SPD, Greens | - |
| Wuppertal | Uwe Schneidewind | CDU, Greens | Yes |
District election
* Reelected ones highlighted in color
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Preliminary result , on Wahlresults.nrw
- ↑ § 3 Local Election Act
- ↑ a b c Local electoral law in North Rhine-Westphalia. Wahlrecht.de, accessed on December 31, 2019 .
- ↑ § 46 a Local Election Act
- ↑ Local elections. Ministry of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia , accessed on December 31, 2019 .
- ↑ Law amending the Local Election Act and other electoral regulations of April 11, 2019
- ↑ Kirsten Bialdiga: Redesign of the constituencies - NRW abolishes the mayor runoff election. Kölnische Rundschau , April 11, 2019, accessed on December 31, 2019 .
- ↑ Abolition of the runoff election unconstitutional. Constitutional Court for the State of North Rhine-Westphalia , December 20, 2019, accessed on December 31, 2019 .
- ↑ State Parliament eases the requirements for local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia. Aachener Zeitung , May 31, 2020, accessed on September 2, 2020 .
- ↑ No postponement of local elections. Constitutional Court of North Rhine-Westphalia, July 6, 2020, accessed on September 2, 2020 .
- ↑ Many voters vote by postal vote. Radio Bonn, September 1, 2020, accessed on September 2, 2020 .
- ↑ Düsseldorf recorded a record run for postal votes. Rheinische Post , August 28, 2020, accessed on September 2, 2020 .
- ↑ Cologne is heading for a postal voting record. City of Cologne, September 1, 2020, accessed on September 2, 2020 .
- ↑ NRW cities trend: the large WDR survey before the local elections. WDR, September 2, 2020, accessed on September 2, 2020 .
